


on your sleeve

by iamnotalizard



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, part of it is high school au, the title is dumb but roll with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-16 07:19:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2260893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamnotalizard/pseuds/iamnotalizard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Calum just turned sixteen. Calum just turned sixteen and has the first words that his soulmate will say to him displayed boldly across his forearm.<br/>Calum kind of hates whoever his soulmate is.<br/><em> Dude, what the fuck? </em></p>
            </blockquote>





	on your sleeve

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Polski available: [on your sleeve](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10879602) by [Avillo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avillo/pseuds/Avillo)



            Calum just turned sixteen. Calum just turned sixteen and has the first words that his soulmate will say to him displayed boldly across his forearm.

            Calum kind of hates whoever his soulmate is.

            _Dude, what the fuck?_

            Of course that would be it. Obviously Calum couldn’t get something nice and sweet like Michael, the words _Your hair is really pretty, it reminds me of the ocean_ written neatly on his forearm. Calum and Michael had spent nearly three hours staring at the the day after Michael turned sixteen, trying to imagine what his soulmate would be like. His hair was different shades of blue for months until Calum told him to just go with the flow, and that his hair didn’t dictate when his soulmate would come.

            No, obviously Calum had to get this.

            His mom was going to freak when she found out that his soulmate would swear the first time they meet.

           

            Michael nearly doubled over laughing when Calum showed him his arm.

            “ _Dude, what the fuck?_ ” Michael read, with tears of laughter running down his face, “ _Dude, what the fuck?”_

“Yes, dude, what the fuck,” Calum grumbled, tugging his sleeve down. He would have to find a better way to hide it, at least until he was older. Could be get in trouble in school because of it, even though technically he wasn’t the one to say it? His mom nearly grounded him already when she saw it, despite the fact that he just slowly lifted his arm up for her to read.

            Michael collected himself, wiping his face and standing up straight. He looked at Calum annoyed face and erupted into giggles again. Calum muttered a few choice words and sighed.

            “Okay, but you have to admit, it’s kind of funny.” Michael said when he got his laughter under control.

            “It’s funny to you, Mister _you have pretty hair_ , it’s not funny to me! Do you know how embarrassing this is? Whenever people ask I’m going to have to show them this!” he said, slowly getting more and more panicked. What will he do if they have kids, what would he tell them? Oh god, what if they get married, Michael will tell the story of   _Dude, what the fuck_ at the wedding. Oh god, what if his soulmate swears all the time no matter the company, his mom would kill them .

            “Cal, dude, calm down, okay, it’s going to be fine,” Michael said, realizing his friend was about to panic, “You’re going to meet whoever your soulmate is, and you’re going to love them, and they’ll love you, and you’re going to laugh so hard about your words, and you’ll live happily ever after.”

            Calum looked at Michael, “You really think that?”

            “Well, yeah, if the first thing someone says to you is Dude what the fuck, then it’s obviously a match made in heaven.”

            Calum glared, but couldn’t help but agree.

 

            When Ashton woke up the day he turned sixteen, he was so excited, he got up at six in the morning, _on a school day._ He rolled across his bed, turning on his bedside lamp and sat up, looking down at his forearms with a grin.

            His grin fell as he read, _Oh, you motherfucker._

            What kind of soulmate said that the first time they met someone? Ashton stared at his arm for a few seconds, and slowly reached over to turn the light off, and layed down again. His mom would probably let him stay home from school.

 

            Michael turned seventeen and his hair is a bright pink. Calum says it makes him look too pale, so he shrugs and dyes it blue. Three days after it switches from pink to blue, he’s at a bookstore, and feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns around and is faced with a boy who’s in his chemistry class. His name is Luke and has a laugh like sunshine.

            “Your hair is really pretty, it reminds me of the ocean,” is what Luke says and Michael’s brain shuts down for a few seconds. Then he clears his throat and says, “Thanks, your face reminds me of the sun.”

            Then they spend a few minutes staring at each other, until Michael says, “Do you want to go somewhere, like a movie? We can go do that if you want, or we can make out.”

            “Yeah that sounds good. Both of them. Let’s do both.”

            When Calum meets Luke he rolls his eyes because _of course_ they both have stupidly cute things on their arms when the day that they met Michael when on a five minute tangent about pimples. He’s happy for them, yes, but seriously, they have the weirdest conversations and yet the sweetest tattoos. Also they make out a lot and Calum kind of misses his best friend.

            Either way, Michael was very happy that he found his soulmate, and his mom loved Luke, and Luke loved Michael and Michael loved him and oh god, there was so much love it was kind of gross. Calum wasn’t really jealous of them, since they were actually early finders. Most people didn’t meet their soulmate until they were in their twenties, some not until they were in their thirties.

            Mostly he was just glad that him and Michael still had their bi-weekly sleepover/movie marathon and that Michael was pretty good at sharing his time between him and Luke, and that Luke was quite sympathetic about his first words after he giggled for a few moments.

            So Calum just went on doing Calumesque things, and wasn’t all too worried about soulmates. The fact that he still piled bracelets on his left arm was totally coincidental.

 

            Ashton spent a few years covering up his words, it was embarrassing having such crass language on him, not because he didn’t swear - he did - but because it was literally _the first thing his soulmate would say to him._ Most people’s were nice things, like ‘hi my name is blah blah’ or ‘you look lovely’ or in some cases it’s actually, ‘oh my gosh, you’re my soulmate!’

            It was a little bit funny, his words, and after he admitted that to himself it got a lot easier to show or tell people when they asked. Still sometimes he wondered what his soulmate was like, if they were rude or mean, if they were American, Canadian, or if they were from Australia too. He assumed he would like whoever his soulmate was, and he guessed that everyone thought the same things too.

            Still, _oh, you motherfucker_ wasn’t exactly the most romantic thing to begin a relationship with.

            Eventually he treated the words as just another part of his body, not something he should be careful with, and let his life continue, figuring that his soulmate wouldn’t come if he was looking for them all the time. Water doesn’t boil when you’re watching it or whatever. He graduated high school, started college and just let his life go on. He was nineteen, it wasn’t like he was totally behind the curve of finding soulmates, and he doubted he would ever find his soulmate if he just stayed in one spot for his whole life.

 

            Calum was running late, he was eighteen and trying to get through college and he was pretty sure he forgot to put socks on this morning, and he was running late. He kept going over the contents of his bag in his mind, trying to remember if he had gotten everything on his mad dash out of his dorm room, and if he had showered in the last two days.

            Then he ran into someone. He ran into someone full force, knocking both of them to the ground. Calum blinked a few times, and lifted his body off of whoever he knocked over. It turned out to be a boy, with blond hair and pretty eyes. Calum blinked a bit more, processing that, yeah they were still on the floor, and yeah, he was still over this poor boy, and yeah, he was really fucking late for class.

            Before he could even say sorry, the boy said, “Dude, what the fuck?”

            Calum blinked again, then lifted himself up so that he was kneeling over the boy, and said, “Oh, you motherfucker.”

            Now it was the boy’s turn to blink. “Do you have any fucking idea how much trouble I got in when people found out that my words were _what the fuck_?”

            “Yeah, okay, but my words are motherfucker. You literally called me a motherfucker. It’s on my arm forever!”

            They stared at each other for a moment.

            “My name’s Ashton.”

            “I’m Calum.”

            “Nice to meet you.”

            “You too.”

            “Can you get off of me?” Calum blushed and nodded, getting off of Ashton rather ungracefully.

            “So, where you heading in such a hurry?” Ashton asked, as he got up. Calum shrugged, “No where that I can’t miss.” which may have been a total lie, but screw it.

            Ashton smiled, “Good, because I demand that you get me a coffee to apologize so violently knocking me over.”

            “I think I can handle that.” Calum said.

 

            Calum is eighteen. Calum is eighteen and his soulmate is twenty, and they like to hold hands and go out for coffee together. When people ask he just smiles and says that he loves Ashton and they met by bumping into each other.

            The fact that his previously large bracelet collection has disappeared is not at all coincidental.

**Author's Note:**

> eyyyooooo  
> so yeah i wrote this for the lovely dylan bc she asked so nicely  
> yeah summers over but im not in school bc of a fuCKING TEACHERS STRIKE GODDAMN I JUST WANT TO GET AN EDUCATION AND THEN GO FIGHT IN THE SKELETON WAR BUt what can ya do?


End file.
